


Serving (Tea) Time

by pudupudu



Category: Rivers of London - Ben Aaronovitch
Genre: Gen, crimes against tea
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-21
Updated: 2016-03-21
Packaged: 2018-05-28 01:06:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 507
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6307969
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pudupudu/pseuds/pudupudu
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Peter has many talents- the art of tea making is not among them.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Serving (Tea) Time

**Author's Note:**

> Friend requested I write a fic involving tea and Peter not being able to make it. If you have any prompts, fling 'em my way.

I like my coffee white and instant ( _like my men_ … ok, feel free to forget that part). I don’t drink tea unless I’m given it. It’s not that I don’t enjoy it, it’s just that when I make it- generally in a polystyrene cup in the nick’s canteen- people tend to give me the side eye. 

I’m not completely inept. I’ve managed to dress myself for years. Can tie my own tie and everything. But I am very easily distracted; and, as it turns out, tea brewing favours the more-focused-than-I-am. As such, when I get around to remembering to put the milk in, the tea bag’s generally bled out to such an extent that I put it out of its misery and pour the lot down the sink. 

Thomas Nightingale, however, has been making tea since before Britain lost its Empire. And he knows almost as much about different varieties as he does about trees (that is to say, a surprising amount). Fortunately for the both of us, he never takes advantage of our purely-magical-you-understand master-apprentice relationship to have me fetch him drinks. 

On this one occasion, however, Stephanopoulos thought it only prudent- given that my guv'nor was a little too focused on trying not to die of hypothermia at the time- that I ‘fetch him some damn tea.’ He was cold, wet, bedraggled, and had ruined a perfectly tailored suit, but still he tried to squirm away from this horrific fate: “I w-w-wouldn’t w-want to impose." 

His attempt failed. Partly due to his chattering teeth, and partly due to the power of Stephanopoulos’s glare as she gave me her patented 'why are you not doing the thing already?’ look. I sloped off to Costa and wondered if they’d take the bag out for me if I asked really nicely. 

Clearly I hadn’t asked nicely enough; when I paid for the tea, the bag was still in it. But how hard could it be to get this right? The answer, apparently, was ‘very’. 

Nightingale choked on the tea and ended up coughing up half an estuary in the process (which, in fairness, was probably much better out than in). He ended up spending two days in a side room at UCH with Dr Walid giving him regular lectures on why he really shouldn’t go for a swim in the Thames with a pre-existing bullet-shaped tendency towards lung infections. 

"It was hardly my intention to end up in the water, Abdul." 

"No,” I backed him up, thinking it was the least I could do after teagate. “He was helping me. I underestimated the strength of our suspect. And his surprisingly prehensile tail. So Inspector Nightingale gave it a tiger-tank worthy whack, only he didn’t have his staff on him, and…" 

Walid glared daggers at us both- "for that, you’re staying in an extra day. And I’m booking you an MRI." 

Needless to say, I wasn’t in Nightingale’s good books after that. I brought him tea- in a flask, courtesy of Molly- and I think he forgave me.

Eventually.


End file.
